National Aurra Bank

I spent the next day preparing to make a trip. As an Aura Refining cultivator, I still had to eat and sleep. So, donning a disguise so that mortals wouldn't recognize me, I bought bread, clothing, and supplies for my trip. In the afternoon, I returned home, only to find a confused woman in official robes standing in front of my door. "Is something the matter?" I asked. "Are you Ying Yue, the tenant of this room?" she asked. I nodded. "I'm from the National Aurra Bank. Please follow me." she said. Since I didn't get a bad feeling from the woman, and I sensed there was more to this, I simply followed her to the bank's local branch, where she led me through a series of checks, doors and corridors, all finely decorated.

National Aurra Bank was the national bank of Aurra, this continent. It was so famous and esteemed it was even used by mortals and cultivators alike. It was backed by several Nascent Soul cultivators and breaking into the bank was sometimes even harder than storming a cultivation school. Finally, she led me to her office, where she introduced herself as Yan Wei, the head of this branch. I was puzzled as to why such an important figure would personally come to fetch me. I was just a penniless orphan.

Also, I didn't use this bank. I kept all my belongings on me at all times, including my cauldron. "I'm sorry to hear about your plight." she began carefully. "Plight?" I asked. "Please rest assured. There is a soundproof formation so you can speak freely." she said. It was then that she released the aura of a Core Formation cultivator. "So it's senior, sorry to be rude." I stood up to bow, and she promptly got me to sit back down. "No worries. Your parents were a major patron of this bank. You are my client." she said. "Client?" I asked. Since when did they use this bank? They were always travelling all over the place. It was already very good if their Qiankun bags weren't robbed when they perished.

"Aurra received news that your parents perished outside 4 years ago. We are sorry we couldn't come to your aid sooner, but we were under a strict agreement that we would only inform you of your trust when you reached 13 years of age." she said. I nodded. So my parents left something for me. Thank god. To prove the contract, she took out a talisman with my mother's aura on it. It was faint, but it proved my mother had made a contract with the bank. Then, she went over the details of the contract with me.

My parents were well known cultivators all over Kunwu. Because of their lifestyle, they knew they would perish one day, so they stored most of their belongings at National Aurra Bank, and also kept a trust for me, keeping only necessities and recent additions with them. National Aurra Bank had an exclusive investment scheme for mortals. Although we were cultivators, having some mortal world currency was always useful, so they had liberally chucked most of their gold in the bank for the bank to invest. In return, the bank had to pay them a portion of the profits as well as interests. Due to their VVIP status, and due to the fact they had given out loans to this bank (when it first started) and parked their money here for about 5000 years, there was quite a lot of money accumulated.

I was a bit skeptical about this, until Yan Wei led me to the vault. To get to the vault, we had to go through a couple teleportation portals until we ended up in the main Kunwu branch. Although it was dangerous for me to be in Kunwu, I was after all, in the bank the entire time, which was extremely safe, so I felt rather assured. We then travelled underground to the bank's vault areas until we reached a door. And another door. And another. A few more doors and a lot of formations later, Yan Wei finally unlocked the last door.

Inside was an endless room of gold, glittering and shiny things. It had to be at least 10 floors high by conservative estimates. Due to the bank's ability to split dimensions, much like a Qiankun bag, each vault could be as big as needed. "How much gold is this?" I asked with a small voice. She handed me a rather thick booklet. "What's this?" "An inventory." she said. I squinted at the amount of gold listed. "Is this enough to buy Valerias?" I asked. "It's enough to buy Sonata." she said. Sonata was the largest and most prosperous country on Aurra. I gasped. Other than gold, there were also piles of jewels and precious goods, not only mortal goods but also cultivation goods. There was also piles of spirit stones. I stared at the booklet. 500 000 high grade spirit stones... what were my parents doing outside? Gambling? Trafficking? How did they get this much?